Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

2412 reviews

dark tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character

I did it. I found the fictional world that is the most upsetting. I'd rather live in 1984 than in Tender is the Flesh. Unforgettable. Traumatized. 10/10.

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challenging dark sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

There's very clear parallels to the argentinian dictatorship here and the exodus of nazis to argentina— the story is about a government-blacked dehumanization of people, which entails the body of disenfranchised people being used in every sense: Even down to scientists doing experiments on humans and the multiple cases of kidnapped women giving birth in captivity and those babies being given to people in power to raise as their own.

Very chilling in how possible this scenario would be. Human rights violations are happening everyday, genocides are happening before us, what will stop governments from encouraging cannibalism if they have something to gain from it?

The use of cold, straight language is very effective. It's chilling in it's almost clinical and straight approach, and works for a character that knowingly toes moral lines to his convenience.

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is the first extreme horror book that I have read that describes the horror and the evil acts in this book from a non sexual point of view. 

The book describes in extreme detail an absolutely dystopian nightmare of humans being raised for slaughter and eaten.

The book does an excellent job of having the main character know and understanding the horror he sees everyday, and understands its completely wrong. This character is around before the world went to shit.

The ending was not what I expected. All in all a good horror book that does a good job with wrestling with psychological trauma and. 

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Good, but incredibly hard to read. 

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dark sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This book was so dark and indicated a constant state of unease inside me. All the trigger warnings. 

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challenging dark sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I am having a hard time rating this book for a few reasons.

First, it is just an uncomfortable read. it deals with a very dark subject, legalized cannibalism, and it doesn't shy away from some of the logical results of such a legal policy. I completely understand that this is a way of shining light on the meat industry and how humans treat animals. It isn't trying to be subtle in that regard. It is just disturbing in that way and if you decide to read the book you need to understand this is what you are getting into.

Second, and this is what I think may be more relative to my rating, I don't think once the book sets up its premise and purpose that it goes anywhere interesting. The book basically sets up the premise, gives some detail of the main character's daily life in this world, shows the character struggling with his reality, and then ends with him ultimately not doing anything different or evolving as a human. This is what I find most egregious. the book just doesn't have anything else to say once it sets up its main ideas and the main character's growth is minimal at best. There was an opportunity for the author to really say something interesting about humanity and human nature but instead just went with "yeah, we suck."

I guess this book received most of its attention due to the shocking nature of the central idea and maybe not so much as a complete narrative. It was kept me interested but the end just didn't deliver anything of note.

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Bleak and disturbing, and yet the ending still took me by surprise. You're given a sliver of hope and then it is snuffed out, because this book is not about that.

Wish I could read it in the original Spanish-- the prose seems to try to break through at times but ultimately I couldn't tell whether the translation was faithful or too literal.   

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Won’t spoil anything, but the ending was crazy, but appropriate. Sick and twisted. But such a good read! I still can’t believe it ended the way the it ended, I wanted to think Marcos was a good guy. 

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